Chewing Obnoxiously May Help You Lose Weight

You know how when you’re sitting near someone chewing annoyingly loud, it suddenly becomes all you can think about? Well, take a bite out of this: Being that person may actually help you shed pounds.

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Researchers from Brigham Young and Colorado State Universities had college students eat cookies with three different cues in mind: eat as loudly as possible, eat normally, and eat as quietly as possible. After completing two similar experiments, each involving around 200 participants, the study authors found that people who chomped the loudest ate significantly less than the rest.

The study authors believe that consciously being aware of the food in your mouth forces you to eat more mindfully, which is key to really enjoying your food—and knowing when you’ve had enough. They’re calling it the “crunch effect” (seriously, it’s half the name of their official study, published in Food Quality and Preference).

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“Sound is typically labeled as the forgotten food sense,” says study coauthor Ryan Elder, assistant professor of marketing at BYU’s Marriot School of Management, in a statement. “But if people are more focused on the sound the food makes, it could reduce consumption.”

That means just tuning into the sound of your normal chewing is enough to help you be a conscious eater—so you don't have to go HAM on your meal to reap the calorie-cutting perk. The researchers also found that people who tried to keep their chewing on the DL consumed less than those who ate normally, again, because they were being more mindful. And that's good news for those fancy business lunch meetings (or awful first dates over chips and queso).

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